Women’s Health Programme roundup 2024

Raising awareness of key areas of women’s health, challenging myths and stigma through positive dialogue, and lived experience forums.

Reducing gendered health inequalities remains an ALLIANCE commitment, and in 2024 we have continued to raise awareness and promote a broader conversation on women’s health experiences through our Women’s Health programme, delivered in support of the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan (WHP).

One element of this work has been centring women’s voices and experiences, and feeding their priorities back to policy makers and service designers. We continue to host the WHP Lived Experience Stakeholder Group where women from across Scotland meet to contribute to the implementation of the WHP. By participating in the Group, members have been able to directly influence developments on women’s health, build a network of shared priorities, and meet with key stakeholders including the Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier.

It was also important in 2024 that we promoted an evidence-based dialogue on women’s health that provides women with a framework for understanding their own experiences and dispels prevailing myths and misinformation on women’s health. Within our women’s health webinar series, we aimed to provide clarity on key aspects of women’s health, reaching over 500 attendees in 2024. Our webinars spotlit subjects that are not well represented within the public conversation, such as women’s heart health, pelvic floor health, contraception, and reproductive anatomy, and provided women with information on where to get support.

Recognising that non-digital options for learning are preferred by some, we continued our series of community women’s health sessions. Working with local partners, including the Willow Service, MECOPP and Stirling Council, we delivered discussion and information sessions to groups of women that may experience additional barriers to accessing information on women’s health, as a result of intersecting inequalities and marginalisation.
We also worked closely with lived experience stakeholders and clinical experts to produce a variety of information resources. One well-received resource was our Women’s Heart Health: voices of lived experience video. Speaking to three women about their journeys with heart disease, the short film gave representation to experiences of heart disease not commonly seen. The video has been imbedded to NHS Inform and will therefore be a positive resource for women seeking support and information. Other resources produced this year include leaflets on endometriosis, PMS and pelvic health; a graphic collection on menstruation; and a video interview with the Woman’s Health Champion.

Providing spaces where women can understand their experiences and challenge stigma continues to be central to our work. Across 2024 we have continued to work with groups across Scotland to promote uptake of our Conversation Café toolkit on women’s health. We were pleased to hear from various partners about the usefulness of the toolkit as a peer support model, and have supported independent use of the toolkit within communities. In April our toolkit was recognised internationally within the International Conference on Integrated in Belfast.

At the end of 2024 we were pleased to be able to bring together our learning and highlights from the last few years of our programme in our impact report, which outlines further the key aims and outcomes of our work on women’s health.

End of page.